Bringing your portfolio over
KeyTurn can ingest your existing portfolio directly from the reports your current PM software already produces. Start with whichever platform you're on today.
AppFolio
Available now → see below
Generic CSV / Excel
Available now → see below
Buildium
Use Generic CSV below
Rent Manager
Use Generic CSV below
Exporting from AppFolio
AppFolio's Rent Roll report is the cleanest export for the initial migration. It includes properties, units, tenants, lease dates, rent amounts, and security deposits — everything KeyTurn needs to seed your portfolio. Owners and tenant emails live in separate reports (covered below).
Step by step
- Sign in to AppFolio and open the Reports menu in the top nav.
- Find “Rent Roll” in the Properties / Leasing section. AppFolio rearranges its menus from time to time; if you can't see it, type “Rent Roll” in the report search box.
- Set the report date to today. The default usually works.
- Choose “All Properties” in the property selector. If you have inactive properties you don't want migrated, deselect those instead.
- Click Export → Excel (.xlsx). Save the file somewhere you'll remember.
- In KeyTurn, go to Settings → Import Data, pick the Excel file, and click Import Rent Roll. You'll see a summary when it's done.
About owners and tenant emails: AppFolio's Rent Roll doesn't include owner contact info or tenant emails. To bring those in, you'll also want the Owner Directory, Property Directory, and Tenant Directory exports. We're building a one-click import for those next; in the meantime, send them to zach@hagwoodlaw.com and we'll load them by hand for free.
Importing from any other platform (Generic CSV / Excel)
If you're coming from Buildium, Rent Manager, Rentec, Propertyware, or just a spreadsheet you've been keeping by hand, KeyTurn can import any tabular file. You upload the file, tell us which columns mean what, and we run the import.
Step by step
- Export to CSV or Excel. Most PM platforms have a "Properties" or "Rent Roll" report that you can save as Excel. If you're working from a hand-maintained spreadsheet, just save it as .csv or .xlsx.
- Make sure the first row is the header. KeyTurn uses the column headers to power the mapping screen, so each column needs a name in row 1 (Address, Tenant Name, Rent, etc.).
- In KeyTurn, go to Settings → Import Data and use the "Or import a generic CSV / Excel" block at the bottom of that section.
- Map your columns. KeyTurn shows the column headers from your file alongside KeyTurn's fields (Property Address, Tenant Name, Rent, etc.). Pick the matching column for each field, or leave it skipped. The only required mapping is Property Address; everything else is optional.
- Click Run Import. KeyTurn shows you a summary: how many properties, tenants, and leases were created, plus any rows it couldn't fully parse.
What KeyTurn does with each row:
- Property created (or updated if the address already exists)
- Tenant created if a tenant name is mapped
- Lease created if both a tenant name AND a lease start date are mapped
- Empty or missing fields are simply skipped — we never guess values
Frequently asked questions
Will importing overwrite my existing KeyTurn data? +
No. The import is additive. If a property already exists (matched by address), KeyTurn updates its basic info but leaves your hand-entered records alone. Properties that already have tenants you typed in yourself are skipped entirely, so a re-import won't blow away custom edits.
What happens if I import the same Rent Roll twice? +
Nothing harmful. The importer is idempotent: it matches on normalized address, tenant name, and lease start date, so duplicate rows update the existing records instead of creating new ones. The second run just refreshes anything that's changed since the first.
How long does the import take? +
Typical portfolios (50–200 doors) finish in under a minute. Larger portfolios scale linearly. You'll see a progress message while it runs and a summary at the end.
What about $0 rent rows? +
KeyTurn never guesses a rent amount. If a row has $0 rent, the import flags it in the summary so you can verify whether it's truly $0 (a comp or family arrangement) or just missing data in AppFolio. We don't back-fill from market rent because that would silently put wrong numbers in your owner statements.
Can I import owners and tenant emails too? +
Yes, but those require separate exports (Owner Directory, Property Directory, Tenant Directory) and the importer for those isn't self-serve yet. For now, send them to zach@hagwoodlaw.com and we'll load them in for you. Self-serve versions are coming.
My current platform isn't listed. Now what? +
If you can export to Excel or CSV, we can almost certainly load it. Email zach@hagwoodlaw.com with a sample export and we'll either (a) point you at a workaround, (b) load it manually for you, or (c) prioritize building a self-serve importer for your platform if there's enough demand.
Is my data safe during the migration? +
Your AppFolio export is processed in-memory in your browser session, sent over HTTPS to KeyTurn, parsed once, then dropped. Nothing about the file itself is stored after the import completes; only the resulting properties, tenants, and leases land in your KeyTurn database (which is itself encrypted at rest). The import is logged in your audit log so you have a record of who did it and what changed.
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